The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of Petunia plant, which originated from crossing a seedling of a Petunia variety called ‘Red Madness’ (unpatented) as the female parent and a Petunia wild species called ‘70-200’ (unpatented) as the male parent.
The Petunia is a very popular plant that is used for flower bedding and potting in the summer season. There are only a few Petunia varieties that do not have an upright growth habit and that have a high resistance to rain, heat, and diseases. The Petunia plants such as REVOLUTION series, ‘Revolution Purple pink’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 6,915), ‘Revolution Brilliant pink’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 6,914), ‘Revolution Brilliantpink-Mini’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 6,899), and ‘Revolution Blue vein’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 9,322) are decumbent type plants having long stems, a lower plant height, abundant branching, and a high resistance to heat, rain and diseases. However, there are only a few Petunia varieties having a decumbent plant shape, a great profusion of flowers, vivid reddish purple petals and a high resistance to rain, heat, and diseases. Accordingly, this invention was aimed at obtaining a new variety having vivid reddish purple petals together with the above features.
The female parent ‘Red Madness’ used in the crossing to produce ‘Sunpurple’ is a cultivar having compact and spreading growth habit with medium size single flowers, the petals having a strong red color.
The male parent ‘70-200’ used in the crossing to produce ‘Sunpurple’ is a strain of wild Petunia species having decumbent growth habit with much branching. It has small size single flowers, the petals having vivid reddish purple color.
In April 2000, crossing of ‘Red Madness’ as the female parent and ‘70-200’ as the pollen parent was conducted at Yokaichi, Shiga, Japan. In August 2000, 80 seedlings were obtained from that crossing. These seedlings were grown in pots in glasshouses and were evaluated. One seedling was selected in view of its growth habit, flower size and color in October 2000. That seedling was propagated by cuttings and a trial was carried out by flower potting and bedding from April to September 2001. The botanical characteristics of that plant were then examined, using similar varieties ‘Sunripami’ (unpatented) and ‘Sunrovein’ (U.S. Plant patent application Ser. No. 10/789,408) for comparison. As a result, it was concluded that this Petunia plant is distinguishable from any other variety, whose existence is known to us, and uniform and stable in its characteristics. The instant plant reproduces true to type in successive generations of asexual reproduction. The new variety of Petunia plant was named ‘Sunpurple’.
In the following description, the color-coding is in accordance with the Colour Chart of The Royal Horticultural Society, London, England (R.H.S.).